Not applicable.
The object of the present invention is a reactive silencer, specified in the preamble of the independent claim presented below, for industrial supply air and exhaust air channels or comparable applications, especially in paper mills.
In different types of industrial plants, especially in paper mills, fans and vacuum pumps constitute a considerable noise source from which the noise spreads through air channels or the like into the environment. Fans are generally selected on the basis of the amount of air required and the pressure loss of the system, and it is thus not often possible to pay sufficient attention to the noise they produce. Therefore, the noise has to be attenuated by means of silencers fitted in the air channels. In large plants, lowering the noise level below increasingly stringent requirements requires larger and larger silencers or ever greater numbers of silencers, that is, considerable investments. This means that the silencers also take considerably lot of space, which is not always available, especially in older plants.
The noise produced by the fans covers a wide spectrum. However, different types of silencers function best only within a specific spectral area. The conventionally used absorptive silencers, in which the sound energy is absorbed and converted into heat in a porous material, function best at higher frequencies, their maximum attenuation being at a frequency of about 1000 Hz. Low noise at a frequency below 200 Hz is mostly left unattenuated by an absorptive silencer of any reasonable size.
To attenuate lower frequencies, it is known to use so-called reactive silencers, in which sound attenuation is achieved by means of the specific geometrical shape of the device. A typical reactive silencer, the so-called tube resonator, comprises a tubular chamber larger than an air channel, into which is arranged a partition wall across the direction of flow and a narrow flow pipe through the partition wall.
The sound-attenuating effect of the tube resonator is based on the fact that when an air current flows to the resonator, it first meets with a sudden expansion and thereafter with a considerable contraction, whereby the resonator reflects a part of the sound energy back towards the sound source. The length of the tube resonator chamber determines the frequency of its maximum attenuation; the longer the chamber, the lower the frequency. The ratio of the cross-sectional area of the chamber to the cross-sectional area of the flow channel passing through the partition wall for its part determines the level of attenuation.
The flow pipe passing through the partition wall in a tube resonator is often provided with an extension part provided with perforations, which part extends from the end of the pipe proper to the supply or discharge opening of the resonator. The perforated pipe extensions reduce pressure loss in the resonator. Metso Paper Inc.""s American patent U.S. Pat. No. 5,285,026 discloses a tube resonator of the above type, which in addition has the special feature that the partition wall is fitted in an oblique position in order to avoid so-called zero attenuation frequency.
From the perspective of noise prevention, particularly demanding sites are paper mills in which, for example, the ventilation of the paper machine room, the removal of moisture from the dryer section of the paper machine, and the creation of an underpressure require discharging of large amounts of air by means of fans or vacuum pumps. In this case it is a question of both large single amounts of air and numerous smaller amounts of air.
It has been found that the tube resonators described above function efficiently in the smaller size categories. In larger size categories, for example, when their diameters exceed 630 mm, some of the sound waves pass through the resonator unattenuated. In paper mills, air exhaust channels may have diameters of up to 2 meters. The sound attenuation problem thus arising has, where possible, been solved by dividing the air current between several smaller channels, in each of which is installed its own silencer. However, dividing the air current between several channels and using separate silencers in each channel gives rise to considerable additional costs, and is often impossible to implement due to the lack of space.
The aim of the present invention is to bring about an improvement to the problems described above.
The aim is especially to achieve a reactive silencer suitable for use in large exhaust air and supply air channels.
The aim is also to achieve a reactive silencer suitable for use in conjunction with several smaller exhaust air or supply air channels.
In order to achieve the above aims, the reactive silencer according to the invention, which is comprised of a sound attenuator chamber fitted with a partition wall and a flow pipe or the like passing through the partition wall, is characterised by what is presented in the characterising part of the independent claim presented below.
A typical reactive sound attenuator chamber according to the invention, which is intended for industrial air channels or similar applications, thus comprises
a partition wall which divides the sound attenuator chamber into a first and second chamber part,
a feed opening in the first chamber part,
a discharge opening in the second chamber part, and
two or more flow channels or pipes which are fitted in the partition wall in order to connect the air spaces of the first and second chamber parts, and the cross-sectional area A1 of which pipes or channels is substantially smaller than the cross-sectional area A2 of the sound attenuator chamber proper.
Preferably, the total cross-sectional area "ugr"A1 of the flow channels is less than one fifth of the cross-sectional area of the sound attenuator chamber, that is, xcexa3A1 less than ⅕*A2.
According to the first preferred embodiment of the invention, two or more feed openings and two or more discharge openings are fitted in the sound attenuator chamber. The sound attenuator chamber in this case preferably has one feed opening and one discharge opening per each flow channel fitted in the partition wall. The feed openings and the discharge openings are preferably fitted in pairs, concentrically opposite each other. Each flow pipe or channel is preferably fitted concentrically between one pair of feed and discharge openings.
The partition wall is fitted in the sound attenuator chamber preferably so that the partition wall divides the chamber into a first chamber part and a second chamber part in such a way that the length l1 of the first chamber part is less or greater than the length l2 of the second chamber part. Typically l1=xc2xd*l2 or l1=2*l2.
In special cases, the sound attenuator chamber can be divided in the direction of flow, by means of several consecutive partition walls, into several consecutive parts depending on the attenuation requirement and the frequency range to be attenuated.
The flow pipe is fitted in the partition wall preferably in such a way that the length l3 of its pipe section projecting into the first chamber part equals half the length l1 of the first chamber part in the direction of flow. Similarly, the length l4 of the flow pipe section projecting into the second chamber part equals half the length l2 of the second chamber part in the direction of flow.
The diameter of the flow pipe fitted in the partition wall is preferably equal in size to the diameter of the feed opening and/or discharge opening. A perforated pipe extension can then be fitted between the end of each flow pipe and the feed opening and discharge opening of the chamber, in order to reduce pressure loss.
Most typically, the silencer according to the invention is formed of an elongated box-like structure which is divided by means of a longitudinal-partition wall into two elongated chamber parts. The partition wall is provided in its longitudinal direction with two or more openings in a row, in each of which is fitted one flow channel or pipe that passes through the partition wall. Similarly, in the first long outer wall, in the longitudinal direction of the wall, two or more feed openings are fitted in a row and in the second long outer wall two or more discharge openings are fitted in the longitudinal direction of the wall.
The feed openings and discharge openings may be adjacent to one another in a straight row or preferably somewhat staggered in a zigzag-pattern row in which case the openings will fit into a smaller space. The flow pipes connecting the chambers to each other are preferably fitted correspondingly in a straight row or zigzag-pattern row. Several rows of openings and flow pipes may be fitted on top of one another if so desired. This type of box-like structure is compact and can easily be fitted vertically or horizontally, for example, on the roof of an industrial plant.
The silencer may be fitted indoors or outdoors. Its walls may be insulated, if necessary, on the interior and/or exterior, e.g. with mineral wool, foamed plastic, polyester fibre or glass fibre insulation. The thermal insulation also acts as acoustic insulation. Insulation fitted inside the silencer also serves to achieve absorptive silencing.
According to a second preferred embodiment of the invention, one or more large main pipes or main channels passing through the partition wall are fitted in the sound attenuator chamber, the said pipe or channel being divided by means of one or more walls parallel with the direction of flow inside the pipe or channel into two or more sections in the direction of flow, each of the said sections forming its own separate connecting pipe between the air spaces of the first and second parts of the sound attenuator chamber. In this case, the sound attenuator chamber preferably comprises one feed opening and one discharge opening per main pipe or channel. On the other hand, if so desired, a separate feed and discharge opening can be formed separately for each pipe or channel section.
If so desired, the sound attenuator chamber proper can also be divided by one or more additional partition walls which are parallel with the direction of flow, into two or more adjacent chamber parts parallel with the direction of flow. If so desired, the sound attenuator chamber can be divided by two additional partition walls parallel with the direction of flow and fitted perpendicularly with respect to each other, into four chamber parts parallel with the direction of flow. A sound attenuator chamber divided in this way is preferably fitted with a transverse partition wall in each chamber part, and this transverse partition wall with at least one flow pipe or channel.
The silencers described above according to the invention are suitable for use in attenuating the low-frequency noise produced by fans, a vacuum pump and the like, which noise comes through the exhaust air channels of a paper mill. The solution according to the invention can be used in exhaust air channels discharging large amounts of air, in which case the large-volume current of air from the exhaust air channel is divided into several smaller air currents before being taken into the sound attenuator chamber or at the sound attenuator chamber entry. On the other hand, the silencer according to the invention can also be used as a compact joint silencer for several smaller exhaust air channels.
Considerable advantages are achieved by means of the invention, such as the following:
the integrated silencer structure according to the invention takes up less space, is overall a simpler solution, and more economical regarding costs than previously used silencer xe2x80x9cbatteriesxe2x80x9d composed of several separate silencers;
a silencer which takes up less space can be fitted in places which were too small for previous silencer solutions;
the silencer also functions with large-volume air currents, which can be divided into smaller air currents;
the silencer can be constructed as a modular structure.
Since neither the length of the silencer according to the invention in the direction of flow, the expansion ratio nor the flow rates need to be changed when enlarging the silencer for larger-volume air currents, the desired attenuation is achieved with a larger silencer as well. By means of the enlarged silencer according to the invention considerably more effective attenuation is achieved than by means of the silencers that have previously been available, the size of which has been increased throughout to ensure the throughflow of a larger-volume air current.
The reactive silencer according to the invention also reduces the need for additional silencing. A much smaller absorptive silencer is often required after the silencer according to the invention in order to attenuate high-frequency noise. In some cases the absorptive silencer may even be completely dispensed with. Considerable further cost savings can be achieved in this way.
Since the silencers according to the invention can be dimensioned at the same cost level, to be more efficient than previously known silencers, it is also possible by applying the invention to steer development towards solutions producing less ambient noise.